KARACHI: Traffic auth­orities are willing to give some leniency to school vans operators, but there will be no compromise on safety and self-respect of schoolchildren, said a senior official on Sunday.

Traffic police DIG Dr Amir Ahmed Shaikh told Dawn that those school van owners/drivers who had applied to the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP) to get safe compressed natural gas (CNG) kits fitted in their vehicles might be given some leniency, but those school van owners bent upon playing with rules of the government and ‘life of children’ would be taken to task.

There were at least 4,000-5,000 school vans plying in the city while the HDIP capacity to install safe CNG kits in vehicles was limited and it could not fit all these vehicles with CNG kits in a short period, therefore, traffic police were willing to give some time to such owners, but they had to apply to remove unsafe CNG kits from their vehicles first, he added.

In the meantime, the authorities made a contact with the HDIP and vehicle owners agreed to provide Rs1,000 for installing a safe CNG kit in each vehicle. In order to ensure implementation of these decisions, 10 teams comprising senior traffic police officers had been set up, said the DIG.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2015

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